


Kiss Everyone Squad

by TwistaLolita



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Low Chaos (Dishonored), M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-05 22:20:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4197117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistaLolita/pseuds/TwistaLolita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the title says, small fics of Corvo and Daud kissing as many people as I could possibly manage to the best of my abilities. Written for Low Chaos Week 2015 on tumblr!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Havelock/Corvo

Corvo confronts him long past Lydia and other servants have retired.

Havelock’s eyes widen when he sees the other man enter - not out of panic or shame of being caught, perhaps something Corvo had expected when he arrived - but a muted curiosity. A pen rests between his fingers, its tip hovering over the aged paper of an old notebook as if Corvo caught him in the middle of a tangible thought.

“Corvo,” Havelock acknowledges, nodding his head slightly but saying nothing else. There’s something in the air between them, an odd electricity that sits on the edge of formality and something more casual.

Havelock holds Corvo’s gaze for a moment longer before slowly returning his attention back to his notebook, the words scrawling across the blue lines in a lazy manner.

A smirk plays on his lips when he feels Corvo standing next to him moments later. The hair on the back of his neck stands as he feels a chill run down his spine - Corvo hadn’t made a sound in his approach. Even as he stands now, his breathing is barely above a whisper.

Havelock makes a show of letting his pen fall from his fingers and turning back to look up at Corvo once more.

“Corvo,” he states again.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Havelock is the softness of his lips. He kisses with a frevor that hints at experience - deep and passionate - but there’s something more and deeper but it isn’t love and it never will be. Havelock is too old and fiery, a man too shaped by his ambition to settle down, and Corvo is too jaded and torn by a past he cannot change.

So instead, Corvo touches his face and hands between breaths, attempting to memorize every inch of something that will never become more. There’s something so raw and honest about the meeting of their lips, that chained curiosity, that when Corvo pulls away and leaves without a word, Havelock feels a strong sense of loss.

Havelock doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night, but when the sun rises and Cecelia raps on his door for tea, he feels energized, a weight lifted off his shoulders.

He has to hold back the urge to smirk when he sees Corvo away personally for the next phase of his plans.

 


	2. Martin/Corvo

“You move like the dead, Corvo,” Martin observes once, when Corvo steps off Samuel’s boat onto land with legs weighted with cement and the sins of men. The Royal Protector had looked at him then, his mask seeming to leave haunted impressions around his tired eyes, and there was an acute understanding between them.

After that, Martin never commented on Corvo’s returns, and Corvo began to become just slightly less guarded.

There’s no trust between then, which suits both parties fine. Yet they often find themselves together late at night, Martin discussing philosophy and religion and Corvo listening intently. Every so often, Martin pauses, watching Corvo nod or shake his head, or sees his eyes widen or narrow, before gauging what else to talk about. Corvo never says a word, yet Martin never seems to run out of something to engage Corvo with. These one-sided conversations often last long after the sun breaks over the horizon, coloring the floorboards in shades of gold and pink and orange.

On this particular night, Martin breaks their unspoken pact, cradling a glass of whiskey close to his chest when he asks.

“I’ve always wondered,” Martin asks with a chuckle, “what are you thinking, Corvo?”

Martin doesn’t seem surprised when Corvo leans forward and presses his lips against the priest’s. In fact, there’s an air of predetermination about it, even when Martin closes his eyes in a knowing exhale, even when Corvo brings that hand to his face to pull him closer. The taste of sacrilege is sharp and sweet, alcohol and unspoken responses to questions fall onto Martin’s tongue and it burns. An inferno of something beautiful and hideous smolders long after Corvo leaves in a rushed whisper of hymns that leave Martin’s lips in ragged breaths.

The servants find Martin still at the bar counter when they set about to their chores. Martin’s head rests his head on clasped hands as he stares at his empty glass, searching for answers he knows he’ll never find.


	3. Pendleton/Corvo

Samuel says there’s snakes among them, serpents with flashing scales and sharp fangs. Martin’s the worst, an accusation whispered behind bar walls and between half-filled glasses. Havelock was a predator of his own kind, cold-blooded and power hungry, feasting on weakness and disparity. Pendleton, too, was no better, a cowardly reptile that shied away from the sun when it got too hot.

Corvo disagrees with this comparison - Pendleton is more of a mouse than a man. A curious creature, guided towards the temptations of warmth and safety, but incredibly fearful all the same. Cowardly, yes, but reptilian? Cold-blooded? No.

During Corvo’s sleepless nights, awoken by cries of little girls and the heat of Outsider’s blood, he often hears the nobleman speaking to himself. Idle thoughts of the past, frantic truths hissed in sharp whispers, affectionate reflections of a time lost to Corvo’s service to the Empress all tangle together in the same tale. Every so often, he hears a clicking sound followed by the scrambling of static before Pendleton begins again.

Hastily recorded memoirs. Corvo listens to each entry before he leaves on a mission, marveling at the character that speaks back to him. Each Pendleton, but each so different - how interesting one entry displays a trumpeted arrogance while another shows the faint beatings of a semblance of a heart.

Pendleton shoots a wired glance when he hears the knob to his quarters turn, gripping the glass in his hand defensively. “Oh, it’s you, Corvo,” he exhales, visibly relieved, yet his eyebrows arch in unabashed suspicion. His eyes narrow slightly when Corvo says nothing, but walks over to the audiograph sitting on the table. The Royal Protector does nothing else, just simply stares at the device before him as if lost in thought.

Pendleton visibly tenses, beginning a speech about how Corvo should mind his own business, but Corvo doesn’t click the machine. The bodyguard stares a little longer and then looks up to glance at Pendleton, who waivers under his gaze. Pendleton swallows thickly - perhaps it’s the liquor, perhaps it’s the weight of the unspoken stories that barrage the nobleman daily - but at that moment, Pendleton feels that Corvo knows. That he had heard him speak through layers of plaster and wood. There’s something in Corvo’s eyes, that jaded innocence, that muted curiosity in his stare, that clutches at Treavor’s throat and makes it difficult to breathe.  


“What do you want?” the nobleman barely manages above a whisper.

He flinches when Corvo takes a step forward, his eyes gleaming with intent. He opens his mouth to warn him, to cry out, to do something, but his words fall into ash in his mouth and he sputters. Instead, he closes his eyes, awaiting whatever fate Corvo has for him–

He practically whines when he feels the gentle pressure of lips against his. Soft, mild, not unlike summer days spent with better company in better times. He’s reminded of dinner parties and gowns of every hue, formal manners and evenings spent dancing under candlelit gazebos. But most of all, he’s reminded of royalty, of important figures and, for once, he feels welcome in that company instead of a possession of others who held that title. He feels that power, tastes that noble blood when Corvo kisses him, and a crushing sense of something greater than himself overcomes him. 

Pendleton pulls away, yet his hands linger at Corvo’s collar, his jacket, grasping onto the threads of something he knows he can never have. A pipe dream of better circumstances, an instant of what could have been, and then it’s gone, following the silent feet of the Royal Protector.

Wallace is awoken by the sound of choked sobs, and when he enters, he finds Pendleton in front of the audiograph with his face in his hands. He says nothing of what is wrong, only asking for forgiveness of something he will not share.

The audiograph is soon discarded.


	4. Samuel/Corvo

They say Samuel left a part of his soul at sea, wishes washed away in foam and the smell of sulfur. It’s why he sleeps outside beneath his shanty outside the pub and not on a mattress - Cecelia says it’s so he can hear his whispers curl with the ocean.

Regardless of his reasons, Corvo always finds himself saddened by the isolation, yet oddly understanding of Samuel’s need for it. There’s a difference between isolation and solitude - Corvo knows of both. He wonders if Samuel does, too.

He searches for these answers, these keys to Samuel’s internal being. The heart tells him of a forgotten love washed away by high tides, of a navy man discarded and overlooked for a greater ambition, but it isn’t enough. There’s an odd lack of closure with the boatman, despite their trips together. There’s a strange tension, even when they huddle over the burning end of a shared cigarette before they retire and Samuel talks about nothing in particular.

There’s pieces of the sailor everywhere, Corvo comes to realize. Stories in the lines of his hands, his actions dictated by unkind habits, fragments of personality in anecdotal exchanges during dawns and dusks. Corvo takes note of these fragments, holding them close as he attempts to map out a history of a man met under unfortunate circumstances.

 _Time passes as it once did, but something inside them shattered_. 

Broken glass, cut hands, useless work.

Samuel admires Corvo, but it’s only after the night of Boyle Party does Corvo really know why.

There’s something instinctive about the way Samuel senses the shift of air beside him - a sudden but muted reaction, waiting but not hesitant. There’s a subtly in his fingers that only someone can be trained to perform, a hand sneaking into a concealed pocket inside his coat, the other placing something to the side. Even when he ultimately shifts his head to look over his shoulder out of the corner of his eye even in the way he exhales as his shoulders remain tense, Samuel embodies strategy that Corvo can only respect. Perhaps Samuel notices this, because soon the sailor is sitting up, rubbing his face humbly.

“Nerves gettin’ to ya, Corvo?” Samuel inquires gently, looking at the Royal Protector but seeing something larger or smaller. His essence, perhaps.

Corvo says nothing, choosing to let a blink of his eyes and the wringing of his hands answer for him. Samuel gives a knowing nod and sighs. There’s a glimmer of a thought in his eyes, a shift in his whole being that implies hesitation, before he reaches behind him and pulls out the object he made to conceal before confronting Corvo.

Corvo must have seemed shocked, because Samuel lets out a chuckle - short, sweet, mirror. An old book rests in his hands, leather binding bent and pages yellowed.

“War history,” Samuel comments, looking down at the tome in the same way he looked at Corvo - distant but encompassing. He lets out a single laugh again, timed with a slight of his head, as he opens the tattered covers and lets his thumb comb through the pages. “Funny how I hate war, yet I can’t stop readin’ about it. Guess this old man can’t let go of his time at the Navy.”

At that moment, it occurs to Corvo about that sense of connection, that trepidation between drags at twilight, that sense of admiration that escaped him.

Mirrors admire mirrors, yes, but mosaics are something else entirely. Samuel leaves pieces of himself because he can no longer be whole, sleeps on the ground and whispers to the sea and reads books about war because it’s the only things he can’t let go. Corvo grapples onto the orders of others and follows without question because service is the only thing that anchors him to the life he once had. He tries holding pieces of his past, but they cut and his heart bleeds. Emily serves as a beacon; Corvo epitomizes a hope Samuel thought he lost long ago. Both men discarded, both hurting and broken.

Both _mending_.

At that moment, Corvo kisses him and finds himself surprised when the sailor returns it after a moment of hesitation. Unlike the others, Corvo finds a strange solitude when his lips meet Samuel’s, and the sweetness causes him to stutter - like Samuel might break if he’s too rough. And perhaps he would - Samuel’s fingers tremble when they finally rest on his shoulders and they do not _grip_ but there is a pressure. Like he’s afraid of letting go, like he doesn’t want to lose this part of his life, too. 

He kisses him and unspoken words and wishes and things the Heart cannot whisper fall onto his tongue, and in turn Corvo gives him those fears he wouldn’t dare say outside his dreams.

It’s almost with a reluctance that Corvo leaves, not because he wishes the moment to last, but for a moment, he thinks he can hear the sea speak to him as well, the words he whispers to the ocean on nights like this.

He wonders if Samuel can taste his secrets now.


	5. Wallace/Corvo

Wallace is many things. A connoisseur of liquors across the Isles. A teacher of manners and etiquette. A soldier, not as swift as he once was but still just as noble. But if there’s anything that particularly stands out for Corvo, it’s the fact that he is, simply, a servant. A personal assistant to nobility - something Wallace never lets anyone forget - but still an employee of the aristocracy nonetheless.

He comments on their similarities when he’s polishing silver - there’s always silver to be polished, and there’s always something else Corvo needs to do. There’s something about the way Wallace works - the practiced way his hands scrub at the dust and grime on the dinnerware - that makes Corvo stop and stare. Even when the servant acknowledges Corvo’s presence, his hands do not stop. Corvo nods in acknowledgement as he takes a seat on the mattress next to him.

They both know there is a greater picture they’re featured in.

They talk about noble blood, about the ways the courts carry themselves. They talk about peace and war, of empires bringing in ages of wealth and corruption alike. They share stories of brutal politicians and gaudy battleships. They snicker at the scandals heard whispered like insects in the walls of the Tower and sigh about heroes fallen in war. Their conversations, much like their work, is punctual. There are no cliffhangers, no guesswork as to one’s opinions on one matter or another. Each story has a succinct beginning and an end - yet when they meet once again at the odd hours of the night, they continue their discussion as if neither of them left.

Tonight, they talk about the music heard in ballrooms meant for spinning bodies and beautiful people.

Tonight, they dance.

There is no music humming through speakers, no glistening tile floors, yet their feet follow the notes of the music of their past. It’s only when they’re close like this does Corvo realize how tall Wallace is, his head just able to rest itself on Wallace’s shoulder. He also feels how rough his hands are, calloused from countless hours of tidying for many years. They talk less when they’re like this, using the silence to recite the notes of symphonies. Corvo sometimes catches glimpses of Wallace’s face and is surprised to see a smile on his lips. It’s faint and dreamy, but still presnt, as if the servant is thinking of the better times Corvo and he have talked about.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that Wallace is caught off-guard by his kiss.

The movement makes his footsteps stutter, waltz notes skipping in his head as he registers that Corvo is kissing him, and is quick to retreat with heat crawling up his neck. He mumbles out something - a hastened apology for something Corvo doesn’t understand - and his hands fumble as he tries to straighten his clothes and distract himself from his reddening face.

They don’t see each other for a few nights afterwards.

But when Wallace kisses Corvo when he asks for a dance, it’s Corvo’s turn to be surprised.


	6. Lydia/Corvo

Lydia first calls him a gentleman when Corvo introduces himself to those at the Hound Pits as a means to wind down from his trip. It’s a modest comment, a comparison to the admiral that owns the bar. Corvo smiles at her, bowing his head in a gracious gesture before wishing her well and retiring for the evening. Lydia looks away when he leaves, but Corvo can feel her eyes upon him when he ascends the stairs to his quarters

She looks at him with those eyes again when he leads Emily off Samuel’s boat by her tiny hand. Lydia bows in the future Empress’s presence, but something tells Corvo that the polite gesture is as much for her as it is for him. He finds it difficult to hide the flash of heat that rises up his neck as he wanders off to find Havelock.

Corvo finds himself talking to her after he returns from his missions from thereon, discussing nothing in particular over a cigarette and couple glasses of whiskey stolen from the distillery in the bar. He doesn’t tell her about what he does, and she doesn’t ask - in turn, he doesn’t ask about why she always wear gloves, or that he hears her pace well into the night, checking all the doors and windows and locking them once, twice, three times to protect them all in case the City Watch tries to drag them all away.

Corvo’s seen her with the rest of the bar’s inhabitants - a woman of perpetual exhaustion, nervous hands and tense shoulders - but when they’re together, Lydia is someone else. She’s confident and charming, sarcastic and witty. She tells him about extravagant parties and beautiful dresses, fireworks and well-used mattresses.

When they’re like this, she calls him a gentleman.

When they’re like this, she tells him she feels young again.

Corvo holds onto the admittance and finds himself doing all he can to make her feel that way when they’re together. Perhaps he realizes that the inspired feeling of youth is mutual. Not the same - Lydia’s childhood was domestic and bittersweet, Corvo’s wild and broken - but that fiery _desire_ , those same hands that clutch a blade of grass and the same eyes that look up into the sky and feel endless possibilities and beauty…that is shared. That’s all that matters.

Lydia’s youth is in her laugh when they sneak out one night, the sound half-thrilled and half-terrified - Corvo can relate to both. The air is warm and a gentle breeze brings in the scent and the sounds of waves lapping against the stones on the shore. They make their way to the rocks on bare feet, toes curling against dewy grass as Corvo leads the way. He perches himself on an outcrop just ahead of Lydia, looking over his shoulder with each step just in case she falls.

(He swore he would never let anyone _fall_ again. Lydia is no exception.)

Lydia is beautiful with a smile and contained laughter, skirt balled between gloved fingers as the two of them make their way to the small island just off the main grounds of the Hounds Pit Pub.

When he finally gets to shore, Corvo turns and extends his hand.

Lydia takes it, gentle and firm, just like Emily getting off the boat.

The kiss that follows is just like Lydia’s hand. It’s sweet and longing - it tastes like a long time coming, like anticipation and kindness. It takes Corvo aback, but only for a moment, for a gentleman is quick on his feet and soon reciprocating Lydia’s advances because _he is Lydia’s gentleman_.

They find a soft patch on the island, untouched by water and sadness and dead Empresses. They spend the rest of the night exchanging small kisses and words over Corvo’s last cigarette and the rest of their whiskey.

Lydia drifts off on Corvo’s shoulder just as the sun begins to rise.

Like the gentleman Lydia envisions, Corvo carries her to her bed in his arms, electricity humming through them as Corvo seamlessly blinks across space and lands on the balls of his feet.

Lydia still feels Corvo’s lips when she awakens to the sound of Wallace rapping at her door.


	7. Slackjaw/Corvo

He gets as far as the elixir still before his breath catches in his throat.

The men outside Granny Rags' home were easy enough to take care of - frozen time and sleep darts would see them all nestled in the alleyway leading to Bottle Street. The power of the rune singing in his hand had been intoxicating, the Void manifesting in the shape of bone.   
Granny Rags had promised him more of this, more of this control, but everything had a price.

But _this_ ¬

Corvo's hands tremble as he thinks of the bottle in his pocket - miniscule entrails shifting within the glass confines and streaking it with blood and preservatives and something that verges on the edge of inhumanity-

Corvo leaves Bottle Street with the taste of bile in his mouth. He hops across slanted rooftops and grasps slick paneling until he faces a tempestuous ocean. Rain stings his face he hurls the bottle as hard as he can.

He stays long after the bottle has disappeared beneath angry waves and unforgiving foam, allowing his hands to stop trembling before climbing down to greet Samuel. If the sailor had seen anything, he doesn't mention it.

Later, Corvo meets Slackjaw. 

Samuel warns Corvo about the gangster, words of caution woven with tales of a ruthless man with an unshakable grip on Dunwall's underground and a mind for business. The stories of Slackjaw as a young man do little to ease Corvo's apprehension - he understands the beast of desperation, wild cards dealt finally in the favor of a man pushed to the edge of sanity just to survive. He imagines the feelings that washed through him when he held those shark hooks in his hand - that power over someone's fate, that first glimpse of absolute control after feeling disempowered - and Corvo feels himself shudder.

On the boat, Corvo imagines a man with mottled skin and nothing to lose.

He's pleasantly surprised when Slakckjaw is neither.

Instead, he's oddly charming, intuitive and heralds a relationship with Corvo with an emphasis on loyalty that Corvo can only respect. There's a protective nature when Slackjaw tells him about his missing man - it's strangely endearing that he refers to him by name.

Corvo finds that Slackjaw works in deals, scales weighted by favors and justified by promise. Corvo's discovery of Crowley's fate earns him a key to the abandoned hotel that leads directly to the Golden Cat without being noticed. He whispers his thanks as he trawls across rooftops and balances across beams above shifty-eyed soldiers out for blood and lives to break.

He thanks Slackjaw again when he finds Emily after climbing through the grates leading to the top floor, unharmed and with a shine of absolute joy in her eyes when they embrace. Corvo closes his eyes and mutters an old Serkonan blessing. He can feel his words follow Emily as she darts behind walls and pillars to make her way out the basement door of the brothel.

He almost leaves before he remembers Slackjaw's deal. 

The temporary pain given to the art dealer is a small price to pay for the ease of Corvo's conscience.

Slackjaw's eyebrows raise with curiosity when Corvo appears before him in a flash of blue. Slackjaw stands behind his desk, fingers poised on its wooden surface as Corvo slides a small piece of paper in front of him. He gives Corvo a crooked grin when he sees the combination -scrawled in professional, practiced hand - before straightening and tucking the slip into his shirt pocket.

"So you've done it," Slackjaw commends. "I've been wanting to get into that safe for months."

For a moment, Corvo feels a small tinge of pride-

That is, until Slackjaw tells him what he plans to do with the Pendletons. 

Corvo initially feels a spike of panic that jumps into his throat, but he remembers Emily and what was done to her and the feeling is soon extinguished.   
Slackjaw says it's giving them a different perspective - Corvo calls it poetic justice.

It's not a pretty fate, but righteousness hardly is. He wonders what Treavor will feel about this development - and immediately stops thinking, deciding it'll be something he'll deal with when he returns to the pub. Instead, he turns his attention to Slackjaw, who's walked out from behind his desk to stand in front of Corvo.

"You ever want work, you come to see me," Slackjaw says with something dark in his voice, something that makes a chill settle at the top of his spine. Corvo nods once, about to turn on his heels to leave when Slackjaw's hand reaches and grips his shoulder.

"You do good work," he continues. Slackjaw tilts his head, looking at Corvo with an indecipherable expression before giving him a familiar smile. "Of course, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, given who you are."

Corvo would follow his urge to blink away and start sprinting and never look back if his legs hadn't stopped working. His pulse quickens, a heat beading on his neck as he feels Slackjaw's other hand reach for the mask on his face. He doesn't look at his eyes, just his teeth - teeth that are daggers, teeth that live up to the stories that weave between the letters of his name. Canine that revel in the smirk they wear as Corvo's mask is pulled to reveal his lips. A thumb traces along his lower lip, and Corvo shudders as the gangster chuckles.

Registering his guilt. His past intentions and his future hopes. 

_Weighing his innocence and finds him exonerated._

Those teeth hide behind lips that are gentle, the pressure against Corvo's own mouth knowing and coy. Grateful and forgiving with a twist of poison. Coins in his mouth. Elixir on his tongue. Seconds stretch and Corvo loses his fear to his friends in low places.

Slackjaw releases him and clears his throat, as if finishing a thought. His name is never mentioned, but as Corvo leaves, there's an understanding between him and the cracking stones of Bottle Street.

_Slackjaw knows._


	8. Piero/Corvo

Piero wakes up with fever dreams and a pounding headache. Trembling hands grapple at sheets before the words he's muttering, still heavy with sleep, breach coherence. He tastes elements on his tongue, epiphanies in the air as he stumbles to his desk and writes, draws, formulates another _thing_ under the influence of the dreams he can no longer distinguish from nightmares. Something _otherworldly_ pulls at his fingers, twisting gears and computing measurements of new inventions that he has no words for but so surely _knows_ will be useful.

Death always seems on his shoulders, then.

That is, until Corvo arrives.

His presence reminds Corvo of childhood fantasies of light, of security blankets that scare away monsters and fears. When Corvo steps through the threshold of his shack, the air feels lighter somehow. He's reminded of his ruminations of the heart and the soul, the energies that bring life and consciousness to living things - and marvels about how Corvo seems to bring it to others. He thinks, perhaps, he will be able to sleep, to not _think_ or _dream_ of the ideas that have come to terrify him.

As if to spite him, the realizations come to Piero with an almost _violence_ under the gaze of dark eyes.

He's stopped sleeping with sheets on because of how often he awakens now.

Corvo hears the muttering in the early hours of the morning, he himself awoken by dreams conjured by the Void. After the first few failed attempts at sleep, he walks over to the window sill, perching himself on the frame to watch the coloring of the sky and the commotion in the shadows that shift at the mouth of the shack.

In the beginning, he simply watches as Piero conjures inventions from his dreams. But when Piero notices the crossbow bolts returned to his desk next to a small pile of Tyvian ore, an unspoken invitation presents itself.

Perhaps he shouldn't be surprised the next time he awakens to scribble his thoughts, Corvo rests on the windowsill above his desk, idly toying with a spool of copper wire. He raises an eyebrow and Piero nods, taking the material with trembling fingers.

There's an economy in necessity, that much they both understand. Havelock had refused to purchase any of the things he asked for a long time ago - Corvo seems much more willing to comply. Before missions, Piero writes down a list of what he needs beneath the weight of sleeping darts and resin to silence his boots. Without fail, Corvo returns with an armful of ore and wire and a clear conscience.

_Piero asks, Corvo fetches_.

Piero asks, and...

What he doesn't understand is _how_. How can Corvo retrieve these things so quickly? How can he seemingly know, with the single nod of his head, about what he needs? What he wants? If he can know this...what else?

Piero is a man of thoughts. Too many. What he thinks and what he says blur together in rambling sentences and bitter audiographs until he can no longer distinguish what was said where or on what. To whom.

The question was meant for the machine on his desk.

Instead, it's directed at Corvo.

"How much do you know?"

Corvo looks at him mid-stroke of the feather between his calloused fingers. The final piece to the newest set of darts Piero constructed in a fit of dream-induced mania. The energy in Piero's veins has finally begun to dull, and he feels it behind his eyes and hears it in the laziness of the words that now hang in the air. Piero clears his throat, tries again. "Forgive me for my sudden ineloquence, Corvo, for you must understand-" Stops. "I appreciate all that you do for me but I _must_ understand how you can know."

Corvo tilts his head, as if confused, but his eyes reveal something more grounded. Sympathy. There's a shift in his posture.

"My inventions come to me in dreams, my epiphanies from forces from something otherworldly, but you-" Piero visibly starts when Corvo suddenly appears before him without a sound. "But you!" The interjection rises to match his reaction and, noticing his volume, immediately lowers his voice to a feverish whisper, as if the utterance of his next words will release something. "How can you _know_ what you're doing will lead you to what you're _looking for_?"

 He means Emily.

He means the man who murdered the Empress.

Piero means nothing and **_everything_** by the words he speaks and he doesn't realize it until Corvo is gently pressing his mouth against his. To quiet him. A tightness he didn't know he held in his shoulders unfolds as Piero's arms go slack.

Corvo kisses him to reassure him.

After a moment, Piero balks and pulls away but does nothing more than that, eyes wide as Corvo _smiles_ at him in a quiet way, the corners of his lips curling slightly upwards before he walks to the door leading to his bedroom and lets himself out.  

Piero spends several more minutes standing in the darkness of his workshop, his body frozen in the moment before. Even after longer still, or what feels like such, a tiredness comes across his eyes and his body, and Piero finds it surprisingly difficult to pull himself to his bed. His body weighted with weeks of sleepless nights, the mattress feels like something out of a fantasy.

 Sleep comes more easily than it ever has, and for the first time in what feels like years, he does not dream.

Piero had forgotten epiphanies do not just come from dreams. 


End file.
